


Something Unexpected

by grilledcheesing



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: College AU, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-05-26 06:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6227695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grilledcheesing/pseuds/grilledcheesing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College sophomore Rey is a bit stunned with herself when she goes home with the handsome Poe Dameron she met at the bar, stunned enough that she disappears the next morning without a word. Her plans to never think about it again are dashed when it turns out Poe Dameron is replacing her professor for the semester — and things move from mortifying to terrifying when Rey realizes that not only does she have to see him every other day, but she's pregnant with his baby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Month Zero

**Month Zero**

 

The first time Rey meets Poe Dameron, she is sitting at the bar, typing a slew of expletives into a text. Despite her many, _many_ protests and a DVR full of _Scandal_ episodes waiting for her, she agreed to Finn’s ludicrous request to meet a blind date here. Now it’s 45 minutes after the guy was supposed to show up, and Rey is out ten dollars from her two beers, a little bit tipsy, and a _lot_ vengeful.

 

“Anyone sitting here?”

 

Rey looks up hopefully, but the guy hovering by the seat next to her is at least in his thirties and definitely not the coed that Finn set her up with.

 

“No,” she says under her breath. Now seems a good a time as any to ditch, so she grabs her wallet and scoots herself off the barstool.

 

“Whoa,” says the guy. “Sorry, I — I didn’t mean to offend, I can certainly find someplace else to sit.”

 

“Huh?” It takes Rey a second to realize that he’s still talking to her. She turns and looks at him, at his chiseled features and his warm eyes and the stubble on his chin. She has every intention of waving him off, of explaining that it has nothing to do with him, but the broad grin on his face is so disarming that she finds herself immobilized.

 

There is something dancing in his eyes, the way he looks at her. Her first impulse is to shrink, and she does exactly that, curving her shoulders into herself.

 

“Sorry,” she says, recovering in an instant, straightening her spine. “I was supposed to meet someone here.”

 

His brow softens a bit. He really is handsome, she thinks, even if he is considerably older than she is.

 

“Lucky him,” he says lightly.

 

Rey snorts. “Sure,” she says, to stop herself from saying what’s really on her mind. The truth is, she hasn’t had a lot of luck in the romance department. She and Finn dated some in high school, because she was a girl and he was a boy and they just assumed that that was an inevitability; it ended gracelessly and forgivingly, thank god, but she hadn’t come close to anything since then. If she’s being honest with herself, she hasn’t let anyone get near enough to her to try.

 

It’s not something she thinks about often, or even really cares about — which is how she knows she is pushing past tipsy and squarely into drunk.

 

“Well, if you’ve got no place to be,” says the man, every bit as smooth as she is rough in her edges, “I wouldn’t mind the company.”

 

She smirks at him. She doesn’t mean to. There is something undeniably infectious about that grin on his face, something conspiratorial, and without even knowing him she wants to be a part of it.

 

“Okay,” she says, feeling bolder than she normally ever would.

 

The man orders them both beers and Rey accepts hers, still smirking into it as she takes a sip, feeling like she’s in some kind of movie. He’ll figure it out in the next few minutes, she’s sure — that she’s only nineteen, that she’s raw and unformed and messy, that she is nothing like the beautiful, established kind of women a guy like this usually goes out with. But whether that happens in five minutes, or ten minutes, or during last call, she doesn’t particularly care. Whatever this is right now feels good, and she can’t ask for much more than that.

 

“I’m Poe,” he tells her. “Poe Dameron.”

 

He raises his glass to tap hers, nudging her a bit with his shoulder. She is stunned by the sudden warmth she feels curling in her stomach.

 

“I’m Rey.”

 

* * *

 

A few hours later she is laying on top of his mattress, laughing that deep, gut kind of laughter she doesn’t think she has felt since she was a little kid, littler than she can even remember. He’s laying there laughing next to her, and by now there are practically tears coming out of her eyes, and they’re both in such a frenzy that she can’t remember what was so funny in the first place, and then —

 

And then he’s kissing her.

 

Rey’s body responds before her brain does, and thank god for that, because her immediate thought is _This is a joke_. She doesn’t know much about Poe Dameron, but she knows enough to know that he is beyond out of her league, perhaps even out of her species. He’s so solid, so sweet, so funny, so handsome, so — shit.

 

She wants to enjoy this, but she can’t let herself. Every second that goes by she is anticipating it, whatever it is that makes the second shoe drop. Rey has lived her life on the edge of other people’s cliffs, waiting for them to snap, waiting for them to let her down. She knows from brutal experience that it is only a matter of time before Poe does the same.

 

She should extricate herself from this now, before she does something she regrets. He pulls away in that moment, and her stomach drops, certain that this it. He has felt her hesitation and come to his senses.

 

But then his hand is on her cheek, his calloused fingers grazing her skin with an impossible kind of tenderness. His dark eyes are trained on hers with such uninhibited attention that she had this ridiculous feeling that she has only been half-visible to the world her entire life, and is only just now truly being seen.

 

“You’re so beautiful,” he says, in this rough, quiet way.

 

She laughs. She has always been an exceptional moment killer. But this time he doesn’t smile, doesn’t laugh along with her, only stares and drinks her in until it feels like he has stolen her very breath from her.

 

And then he kisses her again, and this time she feels herself loosen under his touch, as nineteen years of slamming doors and narrowed eyes and bruised knees and _fear_ all seem to evaporate in his warmth. She is drunk, yes, but not from the alcohol. Her senses seem to flood with him, and she gives in willingly. She breathes him. Tastes him. Feels him. She has never let herself _want_ anything before, and the feeling is as terrifying as it is thrilling, like gravity doesn’t apply to her anymore.

 

His hand skims the bare panel of her stomach and he glances at her, those warm eyes hesitant on hers. She nods, almost imperceptibly, not truly believing that it is happening even as it happens. It feels like it is happening to someone else, and yet at the same time, she suddenly feels more herself than she’s ever been.

 

* * *

 

The light is only just starting to peek through the window when Rey abruptly wakes up and her heart seizes with panic. She doesn’t know where she is, whose arm is cast around her shoulder, whose bed she —

 

Oh.

 

As her eyes adjust and take in Poe’s face, somehow even more devastatingly handsome in the morning light than it was the night before, she feels a grim certainty settle into her bones. The script will play out exactly how she expects: she will stir, and he will wake, and she won’t miss the confusion that flickers in his eyes, or the flash of regret that follows it. He will say something kind, because that’s what he is — kind. But she will feel his pity radiating off of him like it is toxic, radioactive, and she will not be able to bear it.

  
She lets herself look at him one last time, this man she gave everything to so willingly, when she has spent years holding the fragmented parts of herself so dear. Then she grabs her purse from the floor, and leaves with the kind of quietness from his life that everybody else left from hers.


	2. Month One

**Month One**

 

Poe Dameron was supposed to have this semester off from teaching. He worked it out in advance with all of his superiors — he was going to take time off to write his book, travel a little, come back in the spring semester refreshed and ready to deal with a bunch of teenagers in sweatpants falling asleep and texting during his engineering lectures. But when Professor Yates fell unexpectedly ill and decided to take the semester off, all of Poe’s carefully laid plans fell right out the window.

 

He tries not to feel bitter about it as the first of his students trickle into class, letting in the sweltering August humidity every time one of them comes in through the doors. He can feel it curling in his hair, can feel it in the sweat starting to itch under his button-down shirt. It’s been one of the hottest summers on record, and judging from today, there doesn’t seem to be any relief in sight.

 

Right off the bat, he hears a group of girls giggling and staring at him. He smiles good-naturedly before turning his attention back to the whiteboard. He is among the youngest of the professors on staff, so it’s nothing that he isn’t used to at this point, even if it does make him uncomfortable every now and then.

 

He waits until a few minutes past the hour, figuring people will be late on the first day. The engineering building is somewhat of a labyrinth, and even he had trouble finding the room on the first try. At five past the hour he stands up and clears his throat, satisfied by the hush that immediately starts to fall over the room.

 

“Alright, alright,” he says, “welcome to — ”

 

The door slams open, and in rushes a scrawny girl with a messenger bag flopping behind her. He stops mid-sentence to wait her out, and sure enough, she snatches an open seat in the back row and ducks her head down quietly as half the eyes in the room turn toward her. He waits another second and continues.

 

“Welcome to Integrated Design,” he says. “I know you were expecting Professor Yates, but I’ll be filling in for him this semester. I’m Poe Dameron. We can skip that whole messy ‘professor’ business, you can just call me — ”

 

The girl in the back, the one who came in late — her head snaps up so fast that for a split second Poe almost wonders if a fire has spontaneously lit behind him. He can’t help but meet her eye, and it stuns him into silence before he can fully comprehend why.

 

 _Rey_.

 

Her eyes are wide with horror, the nostrils flared on her dainty little nose. For a brief and horrifying moment, his consciousness is split — half of him is here in the classroom, trying to do his damn job, but the other half of him is laying in bed beside her, staring at the pale freckles on her face, watching the tiny knit in her brow as she dreams and the slow and steady rise and fall of her chest.

 

“You can just call me Poe,” he says smoothly, peeling his eyes away from her.

 

He spends the next hour and a half avoiding the spot where she sits. _She’s a student_ . All through the lecture his heart is hammering in his throat, in his head, in the tips of his fingers. This class is mostly sophomores and juniors. That would make her — what, nineteen? Twenty? Certainly not of drinking age. And _shit_ . He bought her a beer. _Two_ beers. He took her to his apartment. He made kissed her, held her, made love to her, and spent every single day in the past few weeks wondering why she disappeared on him, vanishing like a phantom in the night, and —

 

“That’s all for today, I’ll see you all on Thursday,” he says, miraculously finishing the lecture without a hitch.

 

In the following few seconds he tries to decide what to do. Should he talk to her? Is it even appropriate to consider it, when she is his _student_ now? What would he even say, except to —

 

Damn. She is off like a rocket, gathering her books and shoving them into her backpack, practically throwing herself at the door before anyone else gets up out of their seat. It is all the answer he needs, and it should be a relief — but oddly, he has never felt worse.

 

* * *

 

He is really and truly expecting her to drop the course and wait to take it next semester. It wouldn’t set her off of her graduation schedule, and it’s so early in the add/drop process that it wouldn’t disrupt much of anything. But there she is on Thursday, and the subsequent Tuesday, and the Thursday after that. She arrives right on the hour and sits there almost defiantly for the duration of class, then disappears before he can so much as take a breath after dismissing them. It is a little bit like that night in his apartment happening over and over and over again.

 

He tells himself to press it out of his mind. He tells himself not to notice the way she levels her pens between her teeth, the way her nose scrunches when she squints at the whiteboard, the way she very occasionally seems to drift off with eyes that look fleetingly and unbearably _sad_.

 

The truth is, he would never talk to her — not now. Even if she weren’t his student, he would never so much as approach her seeing so plainly how uncomfortable she is with the situation. He wishes there were some non-invasive way to tell her that she has nothing to worry about, if only to stop her from running from his classes like a deer, but there is nothing he can do except cringe every time the clock strikes two.

 

“Kylo, I said no. I’m busy.”

 

Poe is standing in a coffee shop just off campus when he hears her voice and knows it belongs to Rey without even turning around. He is still waiting for his order at the counter. He tenses, hoping that she won’t notice him there.

 

“Busy doing _what?_ ” a male voice answers.

 

“I told you. I have an engineering test tomorrow, the first of the semester, I can’t — ”

 

She barrels right into the back of him. She’s so small that he barely stumbles at the impact, but she ricochets and nearly faceplants on the tile floor — by some miracle he has enough of his wits left to grab her, his hands hoisting her up by the shoulders just before she pitches to the ground.

 

A split second later she is on her feet again, staring up at him like she has seen a ghost.

 

“Poe,” she manages. “Uh, Professor — ”

 

He only realizes that his hands are still on her when a looming figure approaches — a grad student he recognizes as one of the T.A.s in another professor’s class. His shadow practically swallows Rey, and she flinches away from Poe at the sight of him.

 

“Are you okay?” Poe asks.

 

Rey’s mouth is open, but words aren’t coming out. The grad student is eyeing Poe suspiciously, and Poe watches as his gaze rakes unsubtly from Poe over to Rey.

 

“I’m fine,” says Rey, belatedly. “I’m sorry.”

 

“For what?” asks Poe. He doesn’t know what it is about her — something skittish but stubborn, a strange kind of fearlessness, and he finds himself smiling at her despite the glaring awkwardness of their situation.

 

Her face is beet red. “Running into you like that,” she says. “And …”

 

“We’re late,” says Kylo, before she can decide whether or to to finish that sentence. “Grab your coffee, let’s go.”

 

“Give me a second, yeesh,” says Rey, as the brooding grad student stalks over to the counter to get his own drink.

 

Poe doesn’t know what comes over him. He quite possibly has sustained a head injury, or had his drink spiked with stupid juice, because he opens his mouth and quips, “Your boyfriend?” like they’re some kind of pals.

 

The thing is, he meant it as a joke. The guy is clearly an ass and he can see it from a mile away. There’s no way someone like Rey would actually _date_ someone like him, which is why he can barely conceal his horror when she offers him the slightest of apologetic smiles and mumbles a “Yeah.”

 

“Oh.”

 

A beat passes. She looks over to make sure Kylo is still out of earshot and says, “Listen, I’m — I’m sorry. For a few weeks ago. I didn’t … I didn’t think I would ever … “

 

He is almost grateful for the opportunity to clear the air, even if it confirms what he suspected — that Rey isn’t and wasn’t interested in him in the slightest.

 

“Please don’t worry about it,” he says sincerely. “New semester, new start.”

 

It’s lame, but not as lame as _Why did you leave without even writing a note?_ would have been, so at least there’s that.

 

To his surprise, she offers him her hand to shake. It is about the most awkward gesture he can imagine right now, but there is something strangely endearing about it, so he takes her hand anyway.

 

The instant he does, they both realize it’s a mistake. He sees the fragile, fleeting moment pass between them, feels the way his chest tightens, feels the small instant that his breath is interrupted just by the magnetism between them. Even when they pull their hands away it is still there in the surrounding air.

 

“I’ll see you in class,” says Rey, this time to her feet. A second later she is scurrying out the door, following Kylo out onto the sidewalk and across the street, gone just as fast as she is every other day.


	3. Month Two

**Month Two**

 

Rey cannot decide if running into Poe Dameron in that coffee shop was a relief, or the most mortifying thing that has ever happened to her. She believes what he said to her, and in the weeks that follow, she relaxes a bit in his class — she actually  _ hears _ the lecture, instead of scrambling to make sense of it in her textbook when she gets home. But despite all that, and despite her determination to forget that anything ever happened between them, she cannot forget the expression on his face when he asked if she was dating Kylo — some mingling of concern and disappointment that alternately makes her feel rotten and makes her feel  _ furious _ at him for making her feel that way in the first place. 

 

Her first test comes back with a big fat A on it. Everything here is equations-based and multiple choice, which thankfully eliminates any lingering worries that their one-night stand ( _ Jesus _ , she can’t believe she had a one-night stand) might affect her grades. 

 

By October she has settled into an easy rhythm in her semester. She doesn’t talk to Poe, but she passes him once on campus and nods politely. She starts a new shift bartending at night to accommodate her packed class schedule during the day. She spends all of her free time either studying with Finn or hanging out with Kylo, the ex she dated freshman year and kind of sort of got back together with for reasons she is still trying to dissect. Fortunately, at the end of a long day, there isn’t much time to question anything much more than what time she needs to set the alarm for the morning. 

 

That is, until the afternoon in mid-October that she is sitting in the back of Poe’s class and her stomach lurches with such unexpected violence that her entire body goes on autopilot, rushing out of the classroom and making it into a bathroom stall just in time to empty her entire lunch into it. 

 

“Shit,” she moans, grateful at least that she is alone. She hasn’t thrown up like that since — since — 

 

Oh, crap. Here it comes again. She’s upchucking like there’s no tomorrow, until there is nothing left in her, until her throat is raw and her head is pulsing and she is thoroughly disgusted with herself. 

 

Once she is sure that she’s finished, she picks herself up off from the floor, shaking with the effort. Her face is pale and sweaty in the mirror. She splashes cold water on herself and takes a few deep breaths. 

 

The last time she was sick like that, it was from food poisoning that went through the whole group home she was living in at the time. But she and Finn are way too broke to be cooking much more than ramen and freezer waffles these days. There isn’t a single thing she can think of that would do this to her. 

 

By the time she collects herself, she realizes it’s a few minutes past two and the class has let out. Her first irrational thought is to just leave her stuff there and let whatever happens to it happen, because apparently the idea of skulking back into Poe’s classroom after ditching the last fifteen minutes of it is humiliating enough to offset the cost of several textbooks, her graphing calculator, and the beaten up messenger bag she has had since she was fifteen years old. 

 

_ Don’t be an idiot _ . He’s probably long gone by now, anyway. She steels herself, planning to open the door, yank her stuff out of the back row, and go, but when she walks in she almost barrels straight into Poe Dameron himself. 

 

“Sorry, sorry,” she stammers. 

 

He starts to grin at her, but it almost immediately flickers into concern. “You okay?” he asks. 

 

“Yeah,” she says immediately. “I just, uh — under the weather,” she manages, apparently forgetting what a verb is or how to use one. 

 

“Do you want me to walk you to student health?” he asks. 

 

Her eyes snap up to his, unable to conceal her surprise. It is embarrassing, how touched she is by the offer, how much it means to her in that moment. How she is suddenly remembering the tender way he touched her face that night and, how he asked her questions and actually  _ listened _ to the answers, how he fell asleep with an arm around her waist, and how she must have disappointed him by turning out to be flighty, stupid, ridiculous — 

 

“Rey?” 

 

“No,” she blurts. “No, thank you, that’s, uh — really nice of you to offer. I’m just going to go, um, take a nap.” 

 

Ha — if only. She has two papers due and a shift at the bar. Still, Poe cocks his head to the side and says a little worriedly, “Okay. Take care of yourself.” 

 

She makes it about ten feet out of the building before the embarrassment fades and her head clears and in one swooping, awful moment she just  _ knows _ . 

 

“ _ Shit _ .” 

 

* * *

 

Finn seems to think the whole thing is a joke. “You should have seen the lady at the counter,” he says, dutifully handing her over the pharmacy bag with a wicked grin. “She was like, ‘This for you’? And I was like, ‘Uh, yeah, I can’t wait to tell the father.’” 

 

Rey smiles weakly and thanks him. Finn’s still cracking one-liners outside the bathroom as Rey pees with the door ajar, and it’s oddly kind of calming. In the minute that she waits for the test results, she manages to halfway convince herself that she is being paranoid; that there is no statistical chance between her birth control and the condom he used that this could happen; that she really does just have food poisoning, or the flu, or any number of less menacing alternatives. 

 

She walks out of the bathroom with the stick clutched in her hand. 

 

“Well?” Finn asks, jostling her, jumping up behind her to get a look at it with the enthusiasm of a labrador puppy. 

 

The words come out of her mouth, in someone else’s voice. “I’m pregnant.” 

 

Only then does Finn stop in his tracks. The air seems to suction out of the room. Her body seems so foreign to her in that moment that she can almost feel each individual beat of her heart as if it is pumping in someone else. 

 

“Are you sure?” Finn asks breaking the silence. 

 

Rey shows him the test. Finn takes it from her, his expression more grim than she has ever seen it. 

 

“Kylo’s?” he asks. 

 

She closes her eyes and shakes her head, so imperceptibly she doesn’t even know if Finn sees. Much to Kylo’s annoyance, she hasn’t slept with him since they got back together. There is only one possibility, and it is too mortifying and impossible to consider. 

 

“Then  _ whose? _ ” 

 

“Um,” says Rey. Her voice is even. 

 

She doesn’t cry, doesn’t shake. It’s almost as if she has been waiting for this — not  _ this _ , of course, but something. Her life has been going so smoothly lately. She got out of the system. She was on track to graduate early. She’s actually able to pay her rent. And now … 

 

This is the other shoe she knew would drop. It is almost laughable, that she thought she could escape her circumstances. 

 

“Rey …” 

 

She shrugs Finn’s hand off of her shoulder. “I’m going to go for a walk,” she says. 

 

He knows not to ask to come with her. “I’ll be right here when you come back,” he says. 

 

She cannot remember the last time she has walked outside with no purpose, no rush, no place to go. The autumn seems overly bright — people on the quad are laughing too loud, the leaves crunching violently underfoot, the air stiflingly crisp. The day is so beautiful, so ordinary, so out of sync with her reality that it almost seems to mock her. 

 

Rey doesn’t realize she has wandered over to the engineering building until, as if she summoned him there, she sees Poe walk out the doors. She freezes as he walks past, in such engaged conversation with another professor that he doesn’t even notice her there. He is so grown up, so out of her realm, like he belongs to some other universe. The gap between them has never seemed more wide or more absurd. If the evidence of their night together weren’t slowly growing like a parasite inside of her, she might be able to convince herself that it never happened at all. 

 

There is a bench right behind her; she sinks into it, staring at his retreating back, and for the first time since the lines turned pink, presses a hand to her stomach. 

 

She has no idea what she is going to do, but this much she does know: she can never tell Poe.    
  



	4. Month Three

**Month Three**

 

Poe doesn’t hang out in the teacher’s lounge very often — he’s only teaching the one class this semester and his office hours are pretty minimal, so for the most part he tries to get back to the coffee shop or his apartment so he can get some writing in. But one day after a particularly rough night of sleep he decides to take advantage of the office Keurig machine, and ends up standing and waiting for his coffee next to none other than Rey’s boyfriend. 

 

“I don’t know,” he’s saying to another T.A., the redheaded one who seems to be perpetually scowling. “She’s different now. She’s always sick or something, or has some reason not to hang out. She hardly even talks anymore.” 

 

Poe stiffens. 

 

“A few weeks ago you were complaining that she talks too much,” the redhead points out. 

 

Kylo lets out a “hmmph” in response. “She’s gaining weight, too.” 

 

“Maybe she’s depressed or something.” 

 

Poe closes his eyes, a little surprised at himself by how angry he feels. He knows they could only be talking about Rey, and they are so alarmingly  _ flippant _ about her. 

 

He is angry both for this, and because it forces him to confront something he has been trying to avoid for weeks: that despite everything, he can’t stop thinking about her. Despite everything, he can’t help but notice that her eyes were red-rimmed from crying when he passed her on campus one morning; despite everything, he can’t help but admire her drive, the careful way she asks questions in class; despite everything, he still sometimes privately finds himself thinking of  _ that night _ and wondering what might have been.  

 

“Hm. Maybe,” says Kylo. 

 

Poe’s coffee is ready. He grabs it and leaves without a word. 

 

* * *

 

“What can I get you?” 

 

Poe knows he’s had a few — they’ve been celebrating another professor getting tenure, and he’s well into his fourth drink by now — but he certainly hasn’t had enough to hallucinate the very underage bartender offering to serve him. He blinks at Rey’s equally shocked face. She looks so out of place here, with her red cheeks and her hair all askew, looking positively winded trying to keep up with the customers. 

 

“What are you — ” They both ask at the same time. 

 

Poe laughs first, and then, after a hesitant beat, so does Rey. 

 

“You work here?” he says — or shouts, really, over the noise of all the undergrads taking over tables and chairs. It was much quieter when they first arrived, and most of the other professors have gone home by now. He was really just coming over here to settle the tab and head home himself. 

 

“Yeah,” she says. “I — ” 

 

“Yoooo, bartender!” yells one of a group of rowdy boys across the bar. “It’s my boy’s birthday, can we get some drinks?” 

 

Rey offers him a wry little smile. “Sorry,” she says. “What can I get you?” 

 

So much for his tab. “A Bud Light,” he says, only because he sees a cooler full of them within an arm’s reach of her. Sure enough, she yanks one up for him with a sheepish little smile, and he settles in on an empty stool as she heads to the other side of the bar and masterfully handles group after group of drunk coeds. 

 

He drifts in and out of conversation with a few of his colleagues who linger with him for the next two hours. He doesn’t realize he’s waiting her out until it’s nearly closing time, and she shoots him this self-conscious little wave before she heads out. Another waitress closes his tab for him. 

 

Rey is still on his mind as he walks out of the bar, so much so that it feels like he conjured her when he walks past her on the way out sitting on a bench with her headphones on and an engineering textbook propped in her lap. She doesn’t see him standing there, so for a brief, rare moment, he lets himself look at her — at those tired, bright eyes, at loose ends curling out of her ponytail, at the way she thumbs her book when she turns the page. 

 

“Do you need a ride?” he asks. She jumps a little bit. He smiles at her, trying to set her at ease. “I’m calling an Uber.” 

 

She shakes her head. “No, no, I’m — I’m waiting for the bus,” she stammers. And then, an awkward beat later: “But thanks.” 

 

“Do you mind if I sit with you?” he asks. He doesn’t add that he doesn’t like the vibe out here, all poorly-lit and unpopulated and well past midnight on a Wednesday. It’s no place for anyone to be out by themselves, let alone a preoccupied girl who looks like she hasn’t properly slept in weeks. 

 

Rey looks a little surprised. “Sure,” she says, gingerly moving a bit. 

 

They sit in silence for a few moments, and it is excruciating. He should ask her how she’s finding the class, if there is anything in the course material that he could be focusing more on, or any number of more appropriate things — but all of that is drowned out by the throbbing, unrelenting pulse of everything else he wants to know. Who is she, really? What on earth is going on in her head? Was that night as profound feeling for her as it was for him? Why did she  _ leave? _

 

And why on earth does any of this still matter to him, when he knows that it’s wrong to even wonder about it at all? 

 

It’s Rey who speaks first, all at once, more words than he has heard her say since that night three months ago. 

 

“I know it’s weird to bring this up, and that the whole thing is really weird, but I really am sorry about sneaking out that morning, and it had nothing to do with you, I just freaked out because I know that you thought that I was someone I’m not and I didn’t exactly lie but I kind of lied and I’ve never done anything like that before and so I just panicked and I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, so I — ”

 

“Whoa, whoa,” says Poe, trying and failing not to crack a smile. “It’s okay. You don’t have to … please don’t apologize,” he says, even if it is somewhat of a relief to hear. He can’t deny that he’s been going over the details of that night almost obsessively, wondering what he did wrong, wondering what it is about him that scared her away. 

 

“Sorry,” she says again anyway, her face flushing red even in the dim light. “I shouldn’t have even said anything — ”

 

“Rey,” he says, laughing as he is equally charmed and exasperated. Her eyes widen a little bit at the sound of her name, locking on his in a way that they haven’t since that night, in a way that takes him back there so quickly he doesn’t even have time to be angry with himself. He tilts his head slightly to regroup and says, “Really. You don’t have to worry about how I think of you. It’s all good things.” 

 

He can’t tell if the look of disbelief on Rey’s face is because he has overstepped, or because she doesn’t believe him. In some attempt to salvage the situation and keep it appropriate, he adds, “You’re … you’re a good kid, Rey.” 

 

Her laugh is bitter. Almost a little watery. “Thanks,” she says, looking away from him, her lip curling into a smile that looks like anything but. “You’re a good man, Poe.” 

 

The way it comes out of her mouth, it sounds like something grim, something final. Before he can try to understand what’s amiss, he hears the hiss-whine of the bus braking in front of them. Rey collects her things as the door slides open, practically leaping off of the bench. 

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says, all of it rushing out of her like one long word. 

 

“See you tomorrow,” he echoes, watching her clamber up the stairs to the bus interior. 

 

He stands there dumbly as the bus takes off, watching her small form settle into a seat by the opposite window. Only because the bus is taking a sharp turn onto the main road does she come into full view again, however briefly, swiping her eye at some tear too far away for him to see. 

 

He stands there for a few moments after the bus disappeared, the image still burned into his brain. She deserves better. She deserves better than the half-truths Poe is allowed to say to her. She deserves better than her shitty job at this bar. She deserves better than a boyfriend who talks behind her back and doesn’t appreciate the essential things that make her  _ Rey _ . 

 

But he also has to remember his place in her world. At the very least, she deserves that. 


	5. Month Four

**Month Four**

 

“You’re going to want these later,” says Finn, unrepentantly taking pictures of the small swell of Rey’s stomach as she sits eating a peanut butter sandwich on their couch. “For the baby book or whatever.” 

 

She sticks her tongue out at him. As truly and genuinely terrified as she feels right now, she cannot help but find Finn’s antics endearing; they both grew up in the foster system, the furthest reality from baby books and childhood memories and Santa Claus as a person can get, but he still revels in the whole idea of it in a way that Rey wishes she could. 

 

And as kind and supportive as Finn has been about this whole thing, it doesn’t very little to take the edge of her panic. The whole idea of  _ being someone’s mother _ aside, the logistics of it seem close to impossible. She considers the clothes, the new furniture, the diapers, the daycare, and infinite costs she hasn’t even thought of yet that seem to pile down on her like a steady rockfall over the last few months. 

 

She is four months pregnant now and just barely starting to show, but she hasn’t bought a single thing, only started taking on extra shifts and squirreling the money away. She isn’t sure why she doesn’t just start shopping; at first she thought that maybe some part of her thought she would give the kid up for adoption, and that’s why she was stalling, but the truth is that she knew even before the two pink lines that she would never be able to do it. Not after what she and Finn endured growing up.

 

“Have you told Kylo yet?” Finn asks, not quite looking at her. 

 

Rey feels a pit in her chest. “No,” she says. She hasn’t let herself imagine that conversation. Now, as she absentmindedly strokes the tiny swell of her stomach, she knows she can’t go on keeping it to herself much longer. 

 

Finn doesn’t press her. He’s been really good about that — he never asked her who the father was, either. 

 

Rey feels another guilty pang thinking of Poe.  _ You’re a good kid _ . Even now she feels some bitterness in the base of her throat, some ache in her chest that she cannot ignore. She was thinking of telling him that night. Not  _ that night _ , of course, but she was thinking in that moment that she might tell him, maybe when the semester was over, maybe if the conversation had gone differently. But that right there was more efficient and brutal than any kind of outright rejection would be. 

 

Not that his rejection of her should matter. She isn’t just keeping it from him for her own sake; she can’t tell him for  _ his _ sake. He’s talked on and on all semester about how as soon as he finishes grading their finals he’s going to travel and write his book and do all the things he meant to this semester, before he was pulled off of his sabbatical. She has seen how excited he is, how determined. She doesn’t want to be the one who wrecks it for him. 

 

And more than that, she doesn’t want to saddle someone with a kid they don’t want. Rey knows far too well how that feels — foster home after foster home, her keepers ultimately indifferent to her, if not sometimes hostile. Now, as she studies for the very final that Poe can’t wait for them to finish, she finds her hand resting on her stomach, a silent promise: she will never let anyone in this child’s life who doesn’t love them. 

 

“Give me your computer real quick so I can upload these into a folder,” says Finn, taking it from her without asking. 

 

Rey doesn’t protest. She watches as Finn clicks through her desktop, and realizes a beat too late what she has left up on the screen. 

 

“Rey,” says Finn slowly, his brows puckering into a frown. “Why’re you … you’ve been looking at apartment listings?” 

 

Her throat is tight. “Of course,” she says. “I can’t – I can’t just keep a baby in here with you, that wouldn’t be fair.” 

 

When Finn looks up at her he looks almost close to tears. “Are you  _ kidding _ me?” he asks. “Rey — ”

 

“You shouldn’t have to — babies are loud, and we barely have enough space as it is, and you’re graduating this year and who even knows where you’re gonna be and — ”

 

“Here, Rey,” Finn insists. “I’m going to be  _ right here _ , with you. With both of you.” 

 

Shit.  _ Shit _ . If he’s going to cry, so is she. All she manages is to shake her head. As much as she wants to take him up on the offer, in her heart she knows it would never be fair. 

 

Finn clicks out of all the tabs she had open, all the tiny rundown apartments she could have just barely afforded, and gives her one of those unshakeable, uncompromising looks they’ve been giving each other since they were kids. “You’re my best friend, Rey,” he says. “I don’t want to be anywhere but right here.” 

 

For the first time since Rey found out she was pregnant, she bursts into tears. 

 

* * *

 

Rey turns in her final exam with shaking hands. Poe smiles that handsome smile at her and asks, “All set?” 

 

_ I’m pregnant. It’s yours.  _

 

She blinks. 

 

“All set,” she says back, adding a silent goodbye to him as she turns her back and leaves the classroom. How strange, that she’ll never see him again. And how strange that she will see him every time she looks into her own child’s eyes. 

 

She has barely made it three feet out of the lecture hall when she hears Kylo’s voice, an edge to it that immediately paralyzes her. 

 

“What the  _ fuck _ is this?” 

 

Rey looks over at him just in time to see him throw something at her. She is scrambling for it before it even hits the floor — an ultrasound picture. She wrenches it from the ground, holding it to her chest as if the picture is the baby itself. 

 

She has seen Kylo angry before, but never like this. 

 

“You left your textbook in my car last night,” he says, his eyes narrowed at her in disgust. “And  _ this _ fell out of it. With your fucking  _ name _ on it.” 

 

Rey’s heart is hammering through her entire body, seeming to slow the whole scene down, make it excruciating. “Kylo,” she says, keeping her voice low, hoping he will take the hint. “We can talk about this outside, people are taking their — ”

 

“Tell me the truth,” he says, taking a step toward her that makes her flinch. 

 

She is still hugging the picture to herself. “I’m pregnant,” she says, the words surprisingly easy to say. For so long she has wondered what his reaction would be, and her fear for the worst kept her silent. Now that her fear seems to be coming true, it has actually made the decision all too easy — she can tell him now and not worry about him leaving her. It doesn’t matter. In her mind, she is already gone. 

 

“You’re  _ what? _ ” 

 

“Pregnant,” she says, the word coming out in a whisper. She tilts her gaze to the ground, and doesn’t see him coming until he has pushed her, until she is stumbling back into the wall. 

 

“ _ Kylo _ — ”

 

“All this time, you didn’t want to  _ do _ anything, and you were fucking some other guy?” 

 

Her breath is coming fast and hard, staring up at him with the kind of terror that she never thought she could feel — terror not for herself, but for this little whisper of life inside of her. Under any other circumstances she would fight back, clock him in the jaw, push him as savagely as he just pushed her. She doesn’t care what happens to her; she never really has. But she isn’t just responsible for herself anymore. 

 

“I never cheated on you,” she says carefully, meeting his gaze, hating herself for cowering like this. “It happened before we got back together — ”

 

His grip on her tightens, presses her further into the wall, and she gasps. “So you  _ lied _ to me.”  

 

“Please,” she says, for the first time in her life letting someone see how scared she is, how weak, because if she can’t fight back then it is the only thing she can think of that might stop him. “Let go of me, Kylo.”

 

“What the fuck did you think was going to happen, Rey? What  _ fuck _ were you — ”

 

The door to the lecture hall swings open. Rey’s eyes are pinched shut, so she pitches forward a bit in surprise when Kylo’s hands are suddenly off of her. She catches herself before she falls and opens her eyes to see Poe shoving Kylo to the ground. 

 

Kylo gets up with his fists cocked. 

 

“ _ No _ .” The word comes out of Rey sharp like a knife in her throat; it doesn’t occur to her just how much she genuinely feels for Poe until she sees Kylo standing there with murder in his eyes.

 

Kylo ignores her, but seems to reconsider fighting when he recognizes Poe — it’s one thing to fight a student, but quite another to fight an esteemed professor. 

 

“Get the hell out of here,” says Poe, his voice like thunder. “ _ Now _ .” 

 

Kylo looks at him, and then back at Rey — Poe’s entire body stiffens as Kylo looks her up and down with a bitter, awful snarl. 

 

“Good fucking  _ luck _ with your life, Rey,” Kylo spits, rounding on them both. He shoves the door open with unnecessary, brutal force as he goes, leaving an awful silence in his wake. 

 

Every part of her is quivering. She releases a shuddering breath she didn’t know she was holding, and in that moment, something miraculous happens — something foreign and ancient and  _ beautiful _ . The baby kicks. She feels the pulse go through her entire body, and feels an instant and steely resolve wash through her, replacing her fear. 

 

“Rey, are you alright?” 

 

She looks over at Poe — at this sweet and gentle man. For an instant, she lets herself imagine it: waking up next to him on Sunday mornings. Watching him push their kid on a swingset. Kissing him goodbye on their way to work. Drinking wine in the evening on a front porch of a house that they live in, together, safe and happy and whole.

 

“Rey?”

 

There is so much worry in his voice that it jars her out of the fantasy, out of the toxic and dangerous field of her own mind. 

 

“I’m fine,” she says. “Thank you, professor.” 

 

There is no imagining it — she watches him flinch at the word, watches him open his mouth to correct her and decide against it. She takes advantage of his momentary hesitation, and drives the final nail in the coffin of their relationship, whatever it is or could have been. 

 

“Good luck with your book,” she says, starting to walk away from him. Her hand is already poised on the door when she looks back, willing the tears not to spring into her eyes. “Travel safe.” 

 

He opens his mouth to say something, but she ignores it, shoving open the door and walking out into the cold December air. It’s over. It’s done. She never has to see him again. 

 

She is still clutching the ultrasound picture to her chest when the baby kicks again.  _ We’re going to be okay, _ she thinks to herself. Maybe not right now, or in a few months, or even in a few years — but one day, with or without anyone else, the two of them are going to be okay. 


	6. Month Five, Part One

**Month Five, Part One**

 

Christmas is a bust. New Year’s isn’t much better. Poe spends them both holed up in his apartment, trying and failing to work on the novel he’d talked up all semester, the one he had hinged the entire purpose of this sabbatical to. He would visit his family, but he’s already spending a few weeks with them during his travel plans — travel plans that, for whatever reason, he has yet to make. 

 

In fact, he is startled to realize when the sleepy college town becomes decidedly less sleepy that the winter semester has already begun. He is almost embarrassed when a few of his students run into him in the grocery store or the coffee shops just off campus, waving at him almost a little quizzically. Even they know he was supposed to be long gone by now. And yet he finds himself still wandering dead end town, his eyes constantly peeled, his senses constantly heightened, as if he is  _ waiting _ for something. 

 

It used to be that he thought everything was a sign that it was time to leave this place; now that he is actively looking for one, they’re nowhere to be found. 

 

He has a somewhat guilty revelation the first time he sees her, or at least the back of her — Rey, walking out of a shift at the bar where she works, huddled into a coat so thick that she looks like purple marshmallow. His relief is so immediate and immense that he cannot pretend anymore that he hasn’t been keeping an eye out, hoping to run into her. He hasn’t seen her since that unsettling encounter just after his final exam, and it is a relief to know that she seems to be okay. 

 

Another week passes, and Poe knows he can’t put it off much longer. He makes an itinerary. He calls sister on the west coast, and his other sister who’s studying abroad, and they start to work out dates for them all to meet up. Once it’s all settled he’ll book the tickets and do exactly what he planned. 

 

He spends the next day in the coffee shop, hoping that his inspiration to book his flights will bleed into some inspiration to get cracking on his book. He sits for hours, staring out the window with his coffee, writing and scribbling over it and writing some more, looking outwardly quite calm for someone who is screaming a little bit on the inside. Why does this suddenly seem  _ impossible? _ Where did his focus go? Why is it that whenever he tries to imagine himself anywhere other than here, his mind can’t go as far as — 

 

Rey. There she is again, just outside the window. It’s almost as if he was expecting her. She doesn’t see him sitting there as she walks by, her brow knit, her face puckered. She reaches out and grabs a bench for just a second, seeming to steady herself. 

 

Something is wrong. 

 

Poe shoves his notebook into his bag and abandons his coffee before he even finishes the thought, as Rey walks past the window and further along the sidewalk. 

 

“Rey,” he says, stupidly. Calling out to her like they’re old friends or something, when really they’re — well, he has no idea what they are anymore. 

 

She pauses for a second, and in that pause it’s clear that she has recognized his voice. Her back is still turned to him. It occurs to him then that maybe she’s trying to avoid him, but not before he has stupidly raced to catch up with her. 

 

Before he faces her she inexplicably takes the bag she was holding and shoves it in front of herself, as if to drive some kind of wedge between them. He looks at the bag and then back at her with a breathy, self-conscious little laugh — and when he sees her face, he doesn’t just suspect something is wrong. He knows it. 

 

Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes a little glazed. He can see her chest rising and falling, her breath erratic, too swollen for her lungs. 

 

“Poe,” she says, only to shake her head. “Professor.” 

 

“Are you alright?” he asks — which is stupid of him. She’s going to lie. As she open her mouth to do just that, he says, “Let’s sit down.” 

 

“No,” she says, her voice thin, “I’m … I’m just …” 

 

He puts a hand on her elbow and gently guides her over to a bench, which is mercifully empty. She is so unsteady that she doesn’t just follow him, but almost seems to fall into him. He finds himself bracing her as they sit down, and he feels his chest constrict with the kind of fear he doesn’t even recognize. 

 

“I get dizzy sometimes,” she says. “It’ll pass.” 

 

“Okay,” he says, not wanting to press her while she’s clearly trying to get her bearings. “We can just sit.” 

 

“You don’t have to … really,” she says, clutching the bag against her like it is some kind of lifeline. 

 

“Rey, what’s going on?” Poe finds himself asking. 

 

She won’t look at him. 

 

“I know this sounds — presumptuous. And I don’t mean to … “ Shit. He’s doing exactly what he doesn’t mean to be doing, but he can’t help himself. “It’s just — the night I met you. I know that it was a long time ago, and I know it was only one night, but Rey … I feel like we understood each other. I feel like I understood you, at least. And you haven’t — you haven’t been happy the last few months, have you?” He is still staring at her, willing her to meet his eye, willing her to trust him. “Something happened, didn’t it?” 

 

She puts a hand to her forehead and shakes her head. “I thought you’d be gone by now.” 

 

The words strike him unexpectedly. He hears something in her voice — resignation? Disappointment? And yes, hearing it stings, but it also confirms that he is right. 

 

“Rey,” he says, low enough that only she can hear him, “if you need help — if there’s something going on that — ”

 

“No,” she bursts unexpectedly — not a denial, but a plea. She finally looks at him, her eyes red-rimmed and fiery and forlorn. “No, Poe, don’t — Jesus, you don’t even know how much you should hate me, you don’t even know what I’ve — ”

 

“Rey,” he says, his eyes widening in alarm. “What on earth do you — ”

 

“I’m sorry,” she says, getting up from the bench, flying to her feet like a rocket. “I’m — ”

 

Her breath hitches and her eyes seem to roll into her head almost as if in slow motion. Some instinct prevails, and he catches her before she hits the pavement, the full slack weight of her little body in his arms before he can so much as blink. Her face is pale, too pale, and splotched with color. 

 

“Rey,” he says, his heart in his throat. She is entirely unconscious in his arms. People have stopped to stare at them, but he pays them no mind. “Rey … come on, kid.” 

 

She stirs just slightly, her eyes slitting open. It is the most ridiculous relief he has ever felt. 

 

“I’ve got you,” he says. The hospital is a few blocks from here, and his car is only a few paces away. He’s mapping a route in his head before can even fully fathom what is happening. “You’re okay, Rey, I’ve got you.” 

 

She mutters something that he doesn’t catch. A few moments later she is laying in the backseat of his car, and he is racing a few blocks down the road, just barely acknowledging traffic signals. 

 

“You okay back there?” he asks. 

 

She doesn’t answer, and it’s then that he feels the force of his panic in full. He didn’t understand, or didn’t  _ let _ himself understand just how ridiculously, illogically, irrevocably  _ important _ this girl is to him — until right now, in this moment that he could lose her. His knuckles are white on the steering wheel, his jaw aching, his entire body tense and pulsing and terrified. 

 

He doesn’t mean to be quite as dramatic as he is when he bursts into the emergency room carrying her, but it gets the necessary response — two nurses flock over to him with a gurney in an instant. 

 

“What happened?” one of them is asking him. 

 

“She — she fainted,” he says lamely. 

 

“Did she take anything?”

 

Their questions are aggressive, almost accusatory. “No,” he manages. “Or — I don’t — ”

 

“You know or you don’t know?” the other one demands. He follows them toward the ER as they move her, and miraculously nobody stops him.  They start unzipping her coat, opening her eyes and flashing a light into them. 

 

“I …” 

 

“How far along is she?” the first nurse asks. 

 

Poe is at a loss. “How far in what?” 

 

The nurse scowls at him. “Her pregnancy,” she says. “How many months along?” 

 

It feels suddenly as though there is a deafening roar in the room, some invisible, merciless wind cutting through the space between his ears. He stares back at the nurse and then slowly, resolutely, back down at Rey; at her sweet, too pale face, at her wiry arms and legs, at the small but undeniable swell of her sweater exposed out of her unzipped coat. 

 

“Are you not the father?” a nurse snaps. 

 

Poe has forgotten how to speak.  _ Rey is pregnant _ . The last few months all seem to simultaneously slap across every part of him, as he remembers it in full — the puffiness of her eyes, the distant sadness, the time she ran out of the classroom sick, the fight she had with that man she called her boyfriend, the grim resolution of the way she talked to him. 

 

“You can’t be back here if you aren’t family,” says the other nurse. 

 

“I am,” he stammers. “I am the father.” 

  
He says it because he doesn’t want to leave her. It only occurs to him in the next few brutal seconds that follow that it might not actually be a lie. 


	7. Month Five, Part Two

It’s cold. That’s the first thing that Rey thinks to herself as she finally comes to; her fingers and her toes feel frozen, the same way they have for what feels like the entire winter. She shivers, opening her eyes to white on white, to the sound of soft beeping and the pinch of some mechanism on her finger. 

 

She’s in a hospital bed.  _ Shit _ . How on earth did she get … 

 

Before the nurse even walks in, it’s all coming back in humiliating waves. She’d been having dizzy spells a lot lately, but she read up on it and found it was a normal enough symptom at this stage in the game. And maybe she should have been taking it easier, but she had finally saved up enough money to start buying things, and there was a woman on Craigslist who was going to sell her some old nursery things she didn’t need anymore, and … and Rey never met with her. Because now she’s here. Here, in this hospital, somehow — 

 

_ Poe _ . 

 

For a brief moment she isn’t just cold, but entirely frozen. 

 

No. No, no, no. That didn’t happen. She hallucinated running into him. She must have. She’s been so weirdly fixated on the idea of him lately, having so many strange dreams about him, having so many pretend conversations with him in her mind. It only makes sense that she’d conjure him in her head in a moment of weakness. 

 

The nurse comes in and asks her how she’s feeling and checks her vitals. 

 

“Your husband’s just outside, he went to grab a coffee,” she tells Rey. 

 

Rey blinks up at her. “My what?” 

 

“Oh, sorry,” says the nurse. “The baby’s father.” 

 

Rey would laugh, and might have even bothered to correct her — she must have Rey confused with some other patient — but she’s too worried to think about anything else right now. “Is the baby okay?” she asks, touching a hand to her stomach. 

 

“Yes,” the nurse says at once, “but your blood test came back. You’re severely anemic.” 

 

“Oh,” says Rey, feeling foolish for not having thought of that. 

 

The nurse looks down at her with a mixture of concern and condescension. “That means your iron levels are really low,” she says. Rey doesn’t bother to tell her she already knows. “We get this a lot with the really young mothers — it’s a lot to take in, of course, and you may not have considered making the necessary dietary adjustments to compensate.” 

 

Rey feels her cheeks burn, feels her eyes pricking. “I, uh …”  _ I can’t afford to eat anything other than what we get already _ , she wants to tell her. Yes, living off peanut butter sandwiches and pasta and bananas isn’t exactly ideal, but what the hell else was she supposed to do? She’s trying to save up for a crib, for clothes, for a car seat, for a stroller, for — 

 

Oh, Jesus. She’s going to freak out right here in some hospital bed in front of a perfect stranger. 

 

“It’ll be alright, dear,” says the nurse at once. “We have a prescription you can get filled downstairs, and after a week or so of bedrest you ought to be fine.” 

 

“A week?” says Rey, willing her breath not to come so fast, for her heart not to hammer in her throat. She can’t afford a week. She can’t afford a  _ day _ . This baby is coming in four months whether she likes it or not, and she is nowhere near the amount of money she needs to manage it, not even  _ close _ . The idea of missing an entire week of work, not to mention buying a prescription without insurance, is enough to tailspin her into what might be her first actual panic attack. 

 

_ Breathe _ , she tells herself. The nurse is still talking. Rey is only hearing about half of what she says.  _ Just breathe. You’ll figure it out _ . 

 

She has almost reached some version of calm when there’s a shadow in the doorway, and her worst nightmare comes to life: Poe Dameron, standing there with tired eyes and concern knit in his brow, clutching a cup of coffee in his hand and staring at her so steadily that there is no question in her mind that he  _ knows _ . 

 

“I’ve already spoken to your husband,” says the nurse, and Rey would feel a twinge of annoyance at her if she weren’t so actively trying not to meet Poe’s eye. “I’ll leave you two to talk it over.” 

 

Rey almost reaches out like a child, almost grabs the nurse’s hand to tell her not to leave. She doesn’t want to face this. She doesn’t want to look into Poe’s face and acknowledge what she has done — or, more importantly, what she hasn’t. 

 

She is still staring at her stomach when he settles into the chair by her bed, so quietly and so patiently that she wishes she could just disappear. 

 

“How are you feeling?” he asks. 

 

She takes a breath that turns into a shudder. He should be angry with her. He should be  _ furious _ . He should be yelling, should be asking her all the things he deserves answers for, should be punishing her in some way for this. It is what she expects, and what she has always expected; but Poe is so different. So  _ good _ . And it is maddening, how nothing with him seems to follow the familiar script. 

 

“How did you know?” she asks, her hand on the little bump again, reassured by the sound of the monitors. She shakes her head. “I – I didn’t tell anyone it was you. I wouldn’t do that. I …” 

 

She’s lightheaded again, enough that she has to stop and take a breath. She doesn’t mean to look over at Poe, but there is something subtle that changes in his expression that compels her, and then there’s no looking away. 

 

“I didn’t,” he says. “I mean — I didn’t know for sure until just now.” 

 

And then something happens that actually, genuinely rattles her — Poe’s eyes are red-rimmed and watering, staring at her so wholly that it almost feels like he is staring into some part of her she has never even seen herself. He takes a breath like he’s going to say something, but it seems to hitch in his throat. 

 

Rey feels her own eyes burning again. It was one thing to think of the pain she might cause him in the hypothetical; it is unbearable to see it happen now. 

 

“Rey,” he finally asks, his voice heartbreakingly low. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

 

She is not going to cry. It wouldn’t be fair to him, to cry right now — she’s the one who hurt him, not the other way around. And she knows Poe, or at least knows him well enough to know that if she cries, he will comfort her. He will do all the things she doesn’t deserve, the things nobody else has ever done, and the weight of that responsibility — of knowing that there is someone in the world that is capable of caring about other people  _ that much _ — is almost too much to fathom. 

 

She bites the inside of her cheek to ground herself, counts to three, and looks back up at him with clear eyes. 

 

“I didn’t know how to,” she says, which is only half of the truth, if even. It’s not enough and they both know it. His eyes are drowning, waiting, expectant. “You — you have all these plans, all these things you were going to do, and I … you don’t even know me, it wouldn’t be fair to drag you into this. It wouldn’t be fair.” 

 

He’s shaking his head already. “You talk about this like it’s your fault — Rey, we were both there that night. I’m every bit as much responsible for this as you.” 

 

She bristles. She doesn’t want him accepting any of the blame, doesn’t know how to react to it. She unconsciously braces herself, waiting for some other shoe to drop, maybe even wanting it. He deserves to be angry. He should be  _ angry _ . 

 

“I’m not mad,” he says, as if he is reading her very thoughts. It is as reassuring as it is damning. “I just want to … we have so much to figure out.” 

 

Rey balks at the word “we”. “No,” she says at once, “no, I — you have things you have to do. You’re leaving. And I — ”

 

“Rey,” says Poe, “I’m not going to — do you really think I’d just  _ leave _ after getting news like this?” 

 

She’s shaking her head. “You can’t — you can’t do this,” she says, “this is what I was afraid of.” 

 

“Afraid of  _ what? _ ” 

 

“Wrecking your  _ life _ ,” she bursts, too emphatic to even worry about whether or not she might cry. “Saddling you with some kid you don’t  _ want _ , with some stupid coed you met one night at a  _ bar _ , and — and — ” Her body seems to catch up to the rest of her, rallying, calming her voice and steadying her breath. ”I’m gonna be fine. You shouldn’t have to — I mean, I can take care of this. I know what it looks like right now, but I’ve been fine, we’ll be fine, I don’t need you to — to stick around here.” 

 

Poe studies her for a few moments as she tries to will the tears back into her cheeks. 

 

“I know that, Rey. I know you’ll be fine.” 

 

She has to hold her breath for a second, afraid that it will hitch. 

 

“I don’t want to help because I have to. I don’t want to stay because it’s the right thing to do,” he says. “I want to stay because … that’s my kid. That’s  _ our _ kid.” There is so much resolve in his voice, so much  _ feeling _ , that for a moment it stills her fear. “And I know you don’t know me very well, but I’d like to change that. If it’s okay with you, I … I want to be here. I want to be involved.”

 

Rey can’t quite believe what she’s hearing. He’s asking her for … for  _ permission? _

 

She almost startles at the feel of his hand against hers. 

 

“Let me help,” he tells her. “You shouldn’t have to do this alone.” 

 

It is all she has ever wanted to hear. If she is being honest with herself, there have been more than a few nights that she has lain terror-stricken, overwhelmed by the idea of this, by the idea of being someone’s  _ mother _ — nights when she let herself imagine reaching out to Poe for help, let herself imagine that he would say everything he was saying right now. The idea of it was comforting then. It’s terrifying to have it happen now. 

 

His thumb brushes against the thin skin of her hand, light and reassuring. 

 

“The nurse was telling me about how you have to be on bed rest for the next week,” he says. “At least let me help out for that. And if you haven’t gotten sick of me by then — ”

 

Rey chokes out a watery, undignified laugh. “I could never get sick of you,” she says, before she even consciously thinks it.  _ Shit.  _ The words hang there in the air, absolutely mortifying as he absorbs them — and then the beginnings of a grin unfurls on his perfect face, and she feels some reluctant part of her flutter at the sight of it. 

 

He reaches up and brushes a tear out of her eye. The gesture is so intimate that she expects herself to flinch, and maybe he expects it too; he pauses for just the slightest moment before pulling away. 

 

“What about all your adventures?” she asks, still certain that he will come to his senses, that he will realize all that he is giving up and change his mind. 

 

He uses the hand that is still holding hers to squeeze her fingers. “Rey,” he says, his voice a little wry, almost conspiratorial. “Just because we didn’t plan this doesn’t make it any less of an adventure.” 

  
Poe has always had an infectious kind of smile, one that she couldn’t help but smile back at, and this moment is no exception. 


End file.
